ISIS, or the Islamic State, are names applied by the Western press to a bunch of refugees turned extremists in Iraq right now. They are Sunni Muslims driven out of Iraq by the Shi'ite majority after the US invasion for oil, which has so far led to over a million deaths and counting. Seeking refuge in Syria, they were armed and trained by US allies (Saudi Arabia, Israel and Turkey included) to help overthrow Assad and bring about Sunni majority-rule there. This foundered upon America's failure to bomb Damascus, after all leads to the carefully orchestrated chemical weapons attack in Ghouta led straight back to the above-mentioned supporters of the rebels - and not to Assad as hoped. So, hundreds of thousands of casualties later, the attempted coup which had been passed off as an extension of the 'Arab spring' failed (as did the popular revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, thanks to US intervention behind the scenes). Where did that leave the Iraqi refugees turned extremists US allies had armed and trained to topple Assad? Quite clearly as unwelcome guests in a Syria that continued to be ruled by Assad! So they returned back across the border to Iraq to use the arms and training they had received against the benefactors of the US invasion for oil which had driven them out in the first place. And now America is bombing them again. This is surely one of the most bizarre chapters in the history of international conflicts ever . . .

If they're good enough to play at World Cups, then why not in between?

They're in a large part foreigners both to Iraq and to Syria and the ones that have been driven away from their homes were driven away to the north western part of the country which is dominated by Sunnis not outside of Iraq.

Also, the Tunisian revolution has not failed. It has led to a change of regime and a more democratic system.

The finger should be pointed squarely at Turkey for not policing its southeastern border. They seem to have made efforts to prevent Turkish Kurds from crossing the border into Syria to defend their ethnic kin, however. I wonder why...

You don't suffer for what is happening in Iraq and Syria, you are not really trying to discover the "true" guilty, you just have the need to give the guilt of everything to the villain Usa, the hot, comfortable villain of all your measly dreams. And, I suspect, you have also the pleasure to shock the audience (the big big audience of this forum) with your thesis, so receiving a bit of attention.

And I'd like that you don't repost here the things I write on Fira forum

Yes, there are foreigners involved. I know that. Yes, I mentioned Turkey. But the core of "ISIS" (that's not what they call themselves) were originally refugees from Iraq looking to create a Sunni homeland in neighboring Syria. They were armed and trained by countries allied to America to achieve that cause and committed some of the most horrific crimes against civilians imaginable (including the chemical weapons attack in Damascus). So now America and its allies have to go back in and exterminate the pest they created in the first place. Very similar to the Taliban in Afghanistan - one of the longest-running conflicts in recent history, and not by accident...

The US created Al Qaeda and the so-called "War on Terror" as a scare tactic to police the world and pursue its global imperial agenda, and this is merely the latest extention. The CIA, which has a long history of overthrowing democratically elected governments around the world and helping install brutal and murderous dictatorships, was behind the arming of the group they refer to as "ISIS" or the "Islamic State." There will always be new groups and new enemies to "justify" the presence of scores of American military bases around the world, concentrated in the oil-rich Middle East and around arch-enemy Russia's borders.

The latest bombing campaign and return of American troops to the region is designed primarily to consolidate US control of the Iraq petroleum. Interestingly they are accompanied on this mission by Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan, the UAE and the Saudis. The latest invasion has conveniently provided America with a chance to deploy its new raptor jets, cruise missiles and drones, serving the economic interests of the US military industrial complex, while destroying people's homes and creating what they call "collateral damage" (the language of terrorists). Last year the Pope himslef referred to America's proposed war against Syria as "a commercial war for arms sales." But suddenly now he is silent.

Last edited by Rowan on Fri, 26 Sep 2014, 07:17, edited 4 times in total.

If they're good enough to play at World Cups, then why not in between?

the ones that have been driven away from their homes were driven away to the north western part of the country which is dominated by Sunnis not outside of Iraq.

Are you referring to the Kurds? The north is mostly Kurdish, there is an autonomous Kurdish region in the north, many Kurds are not Sunni, including the Alevi - who are neither Sunni nor Shi'ite but closer to the latter, and I doubt that Iraqis would feel too welcome up that way. I was in Damascus several years ago and the Iraqi refugees were flooding in.

Last edited by Rowan on Fri, 26 Sep 2014, 18:44, edited 4 times in total.

If they're good enough to play at World Cups, then why not in between?

the ones that have been driven away from their homes were driven away to the north western part of the country which is dominated by Sunnis not outside of Iraq.

Are you referring to the Kurds? The north is mostly Kurdish, there is an autonomous Kurdish region in the north, many Kurds are not Sunni, including the Alevi - who are neither Sunni nor Shi'ite but closer to the latter, and I doubt that Iraqis would feel too welcome up that way. I was in Damascus several years ago and the Iraqi refugees were flooding in.

Here is the Iraq religion/ethnic map:The north west is inhabited by Sunnis. That's where the Sunni moved to. Most of the Kurds are Sunni too. They could have continued to live there happily ever after, but everyone in that area, except perhaps the Kurds, seem to be sectarian fuckwits so the Syrian revolution quickly turned into a Sunni vs Alawite + Shia + Christians, and Saudi's and Yemen's funding to Sunni armed groups have certainly not helped cool down the situation.At this point the best thing we could hope for would be for Iraq and Syria to be split into sever states:Southern Iraq = Shia stateNortheast Iraq + North East Syria = KurdistanNorthwest Iraq + Eastern Syria = Sunni stateWestern Syria = Alawite + Christian + Druze state

I've also been to the south of Turkey several times, where the anti-Assad rebels freely roam the streets fully armed, carrying out their operations from this side of the border. & Turkey is a NATO member and dances to Washington's tune. Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been financing these rebels/terrorists on behalf of the United States, Israel has been harboring them in the Golan Heights, and Turkey has been involved in recruitment. Also, these rebels, both in Syria and Iraq, were actually integrated and trained by Western military advisers.

Northeast Iraq + North East Syria = Kurdistan

If they're good enough to play at World Cups, then why not in between?

I think what Rowan is aying is that ISIS is an innocent Islamic organisation, the victim of many years of wrong doings by the USA.

I haven't suggested anything of the sort. I've referred to them as rebels/terrorists, I don't regard them as Islamic at all. It is the Western media that is so determined to make sure we perceive them as an 'Islamic organisation,' when it could just as easily present the KKK to us as a 'Christian' organization and refer to them as the 'Christian State' or some equally ridiculous misnomer.

What I have suggested is that they are extremists who were created by America and its allies to try and oust Assad, and that, having failed on that front, have now crossed into Iraq (returning to their homeland, in the case of the Iraqi war refugees in their midst), and are wreaking havoc there, so that America and its allies now feel compelled to bomb them.

I don't even regard them as much of an 'organization,' in fact; just a loose collection of fanatics and mercenaries lusting to put their 'Property of US Gov't' machine guns and assault rifles to use against whoever now gets in their way. But they pose no genuine threat to world peace and could quite easily be dealt with by simpler means than another full-scale invasion by the usual warmongering nations. This is about consolidating US control of the region - notably, its oil industry.

If they're good enough to play at World Cups, then why not in between?

Once all these radicalised idiots from around the World are in their caliphates, then drop some kickass bombs from the safety of drones or thirty thousand feet or Tommyhawks from ships ideally cruising the gulf. Of course the USA and its allies should feel compelled to bomb them they couldnt have dreamed of a better opportunity.

Solves a lot of problems for all concerned, dont even have to go to the expense of burying them.

& don't worry about the civilian casualties - "collateral damage," as they say in the language of terrorism - the revenge attacks against civilians, nor the inevitable surge of extremism this creates. The point you are so evidently missing is that the US and its allies do create these groups. The Taliban was just the prototype. There have been many since. Therefore the US and its allies were complicit in their crimes against Syrian civilians. Should we therefore bomb the US and its allies too? By your method of evaluation, that would be the "simplest solution."

America's invasion of Iraq in 2003 was the greatest war crime of the century so far, leading to over a million deaths and millions more wounded, traumatized, displaced and so on, and this due in no small part to their complete failure to provide security for the people in the wake of their extensive bombing campaigns. The same lack of security is the issue now, and dropping more bombs isn't going to achieve anything in the long-term besides. What did bombing the Taliban achieve? They're still in control there, and if anything the war has made them more extreme. The Americans are there primarily to secure their lucrative gas line from the Caspian to the Indian Ocean, and they're in Iraq primarily to control the lucrative petroleum industry.

If they're good enough to play at World Cups, then why not in between?

Yea your quite right Rowan I won t worry about the civillian casualties, it doesnt create extremism, extremism is a prerequisite talent of ISIS.

ISIS relies on there being a good supply of flakey minded Fools in the West who will always at every opportunity take an anti USA stance, on the pretext that they are protecting the poor innocent civilians, meanwhile ISIS will mingle in civilians areas to draw fire, which kills more civilians. Last month it was Gaza.After a while it gets a bit boring.

I dont know of the alledged war crimes that you speak of that the USA and its allies have committed, therefore I see no reason to bomb them.

You also ask What benefits were achieved by bombing the Taliban? as they are still in control there? in a paragraph refering to Iraq, I always thought that the Taliban was an extremist political movement in Afghanistan, not Iraq. Silly old me.

Ok, so you're happy to see civilians killed because you live far away in a nice, safe place and this is like a Hollywood movie for you. But you still haven't addressed the fact that what the Western media has labelled the 'Islamic State' or 'ISIS,' is in fact a bunch of displaced and disenfranchised rebels from war-torn nations which America and its allies armed and trained to fight against Assad. American leaders themselves are not denying this, and at least one - Hillary Clinton - has actually admitted it. Therefore America and its allies are complicit in the crimes these nut-cases committed against Syrian civilians (including the chemical weapons attack in Damascus), so by your method of evaluation, America and its allies should be bombed as punishment. I'm not sure what your Iraq connection to the Taliban was all about, but three decades ago the US committed the same myopic blunder by arming and training the Taliban to fight against the Soviets. You decline any knowledge of American war crimes. Well, former CIA officer John Stockwell estimates his organization had killed around 6 million people during four decades of covert and illegal interventions. This does not include major attacks on other nations such as Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Afganistan and Iraq (the latter, in violation of the UN and therefore illegal, leading to an estimated million deaths and counting).

If they're good enough to play at World Cups, then why not in between?

Rowan wrote:& don't worry about the civilian casualties - "collateral damage," as they say in the language of terrorism - the revenge attacks against civilians, nor the inevitable surge of extremism this creates. The point you are so evidently missing is that the US and its allies do create these groups. The Taliban was just the prototype. There have been many since. Therefore the US and its allies were complicit in their crimes against Syrian civilians. Should we therefore bomb the US and its allies too? By your method of evaluation, that would be the "simplest solution."

America's invasion of Iraq in 2003 was the greatest war crime of the century so far, leading to over a million deaths and millions more wounded, traumatized, displaced and so on, and this due in no small part to their complete failure to provide security for the people in the wake of their extensive bombing campaigns. The same lack of security is the issue now, and dropping more bombs isn't going to achieve anything in the long-term besides. What did bombing the Taliban achieve? They're still in control there, and if anything the war has made them more extreme. The Americans are there primarily to secure their lucrative gas line from the Caspian to the Indian Ocean, and they're in Iraq primarily to control the lucrative petroleum industry.

Rowan you state that you dont understand the connection between the Taliban and Iraq, welll nether did I, all I was trying to do was recognise some coherent logic to one of your previous posts. I think this is an example of why I find your posts very hard to comprehend as your lines of thought are all over the place, which leads to nothing but confusion, on subjects which could otherwise foster really good discussion.

I said I didn't understand your connection between Iraq and the Taliban.

Well, former US presidential candidate Ron Paul recently described the latest bombing campaign in Iraq as 'immoral and illegal,' suggested it would only lead to more violence, and claimed the primary motive was in fact the sale of weapons. The US is in fact bombing the very same weapons it sent to the rebels to fight the Syrian government. This entire mess was created by the US and its allies, and now they're using this so-called 'ISIS' as a scare-tactic to justify further bombing of a supposedly sovereign nation on the other side of the planet. 'Al Qaeda' was used in exactly the same way, but after more than a decade of trotting this particular phantom out as justification for disruptive interventions abroad, they have found it no longer holds currency.

If they're good enough to play at World Cups, then why not in between?

Rowan wrote:I said I didn't understand your connection between Iraq and the Taliban.

Well, former US presidential candidate Ron Paul recently described the latest bombing campaign in Iraq as 'immoral and illegal,' suggested it would only lead to more violence, and claimed the primary motive was in fact the sale of weapons. The US is in fact bombing the very same weapons it sent to the rebels to fight the Syrian government. This entire mess was created by the US and its allies, and now they're using this so-called 'ISIS' as a scare-tactic to justify further bombing of a supposedly sovereign nation on the other side of the planet. 'Al Qaeda' was used in exactly the same way, but after more than a decade of trotting this particular phantom out as justification for disruptive interventions abroad, they have found it no longer holds currency.

This being the same Ron Paul that said the Presidents salary should be cut to $39,000 pa to equal average US wage? Who really cares what a Libertarian US politican thinks, when it comes to issues of war?

Many other highly respected critics of US foreign policy, including Americans Chomsky and Finkelstein and Australian John Pilger, have said more or less the same thing. But I thought I'd present you with the view of a notable figure from within the US political establishment itself. From today's headlines:

BEIRUT (Reuters) - U.S.-led air strikes hit grain silos and other targets in Islamic State-controlled territory in northern and eastern Syria overnight, killing civilians and wounding militants, a group monitoring the war said on Monday.

If they're good enough to play at World Cups, then why not in between?

The American 'Empire,' with its scores of military bases all around the world, has been built on the back of false flag operations. You can go right back to the Spanish-American war in the late 19th century, triggered by an accidental explosion on an American vessel. Out of that war the US gained control of Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Phillipines, and thus began its imperialist designs. The threat of Communism was trotted out as reason to invade or intervene in most of Latin America plus East Asia during the Post-WWII Cold War era, with the Bay of Tonkin Incident, a classic example of duping the public, triggering the Vietnam War. You would think that the American people would have learnt their lesson by now, but September 11 signalled the arrival of a whole new range of scare-mongering tactics as the US set its sights on controlling the Middle East. If you think America fought a 13-year-war in Afghanistan to kill Bin Laden, or to get rid of the Taliban, you will have noticed that they neither killed Bin Laden in Afganistan at all, and neither did they get rid of the Taliban - which they created in the first place. All the war achieved was to secure a pipeline to transport gas out of the Caspian into the Indian Ocean, and to enrich Dick Cheney's Halliburton company along with other industries connected to the American Military Security Complex. The case for the illegal and almost universally opposed invasion of Iraq in 2003 - WOMD - was disproved very early in the piece, but still the war goes on more than a decade (and an estimated one million-plus lives) later. Then we were frequently informed that Al Qaeda was active in the region and 'American-Iraqi' forces were galantly fighting them. But British foreign secretary Robin Cook, shortly before his sudden death, stated that no such organization as Al Qaeda even existed. Libya was a stable and prosperous country before the NATO invasion - which has left it in chaos. Then the US, having armed rebels/terrorists to create a vicious civil war in Syria, accused Assad of using chemical weapons, as a pretext to bomb Damascus. Fortunately the latter incident never came about, as the chemic weapons used were actually traced back to the Jihadists. Now we are being presented with images of Western journalists being beheaded (questionable, to say the least) to justify yet another bombing campaign in Iraq - and also in Syria - apparently to exterminate this latest "threat to civilization." These rebels/terrorists are given interesting names by the Western media, such as the 'Islamic State' and 'Khorasan' (the Khorasan most certainly does not exist). Meanwhile, the old 'red terror' approach has been dusted off and presented again as a pretext for NATO's ongoing expansion into Eastern Europe, in defiance of post-Cold War agreements, leading to the current crisis in the Ukraine. The casualties of all these conflicts have been mostly civilians, and the result to the regions effected (and sorely decimated) is inevitable an increase in terrorism. As Putin noted himself, not one of the military attacks on other countries had resulted in a better situation. Of course, it usually takes the American public a few years to figure out it has been duped - yet again, but by that time the damage has been done and another "threat to their freedom and democracy" has arisen somewhere else on the landscape. The reason this continues is that American government has total control over its mass media, and major corporations have control over the American government - and the CIA. JFK paid the price for attempting to block them. Bush Jr and Obama have been nothing more that puppets and spokespersons.

If they're good enough to play at World Cups, then why not in between?

I didnt know Islamic State was the western medias name for them, I thought it was there own name which was just translated into english. What do you mean about the beheadings are dubious? Like photoshopped or somthing?

Probably they do not have a name for themselves. Why would they? They're not a rock band. They are a loose collection of rebels from all around the region, many of them displaced by American attacks on the region, who were armed and trained to fight Assad in Syria, only to find themselves abandoned when the US failed to bomb Damascus as planned. No longer safe in Syria, they've crossed the border into Iraq, whence many of them came, but where they are also unwelcome, and are thus attempting to fight for a state of their own. The West gives such rebels Islamic-sounding names and refers to them, rightly or wrongly, as 'terrorists' - thus demonizing the religion in the minds of the general public of those Christian nations which are bombing the Middle East. Al Qaeda is a classic example of this. Prior to the invention of the IS and Khorasan, almost every act of terrorism, rebellion or simple resistance committed by Muslims throughout the world was either attributed to or associated with that "organization," increasingly often with the meaningless reference 'Al Qaeda-inspired.' In this manner the media propaganda ties them to 9/11 in the minds of the American public. It is certainly questionable whether any such 'organization' as 'Al Qaeda' actually exists.

An international forensic company studied the video of the Foley execution and established that no blood could be seen and that sounds allegedly made by Foley did not seem authentic. This report was published in The Australian newspaper. The Global Mirror questioned why the actual execution was edited when the gruesome image of the decapitated head is shown at the end. Did the evil terrorists censor their own beheading video to avoid disturbing small children? Terrorists such as those armed by the US and its allies to fight Assad invariably, while slaughtering civilians, declare 'Allahu Akbar' (God is Great) during religiously-motivated executions. No such cry was heard on the Foley clip. Experts have also established that, whereas other such executions carried out by terrorists are invariably unstable and grainy, the video of Foley was shot on an HD camera and professionally-edited. Indeed, the clip looks as though it could have been shot in Hollywood, with no wind nor dust in this 'desert' landscape. The parents of Foley appeared in front of the mass media within 24 hours of the alleged execution. Does that seem normal?

If they're good enough to play at World Cups, then why not in between?

NedRugby wrote:I didnt know Islamic State was the western medias name for them, I thought it was there own name which was just translated into english. What do you mean about the beheadings are dubious? Like photoshopped or somthing?

Clearly the western media forced them to take this name for its own end ISIS is merely a slightly erroneous acronymic translation but there's no doubting that they refer to themselves as "The Islamist State"